The Silence of Mary Home

Youth. Our society’s most precious resource and yet far too many of them struggle to find sanctuary, food, and a family structure with stability and moral and Christian values.

Here we help the homeless and at-risk youth from broken or troubled families, or whom courts have granted a second chance. They come from homes where abuse and neglect by their natural parents is “normal." They are young people who, after placement in foster care, enter the juvenile probation system as children. Some are mentally challenged, or have severe behavioral problems that make it impossible for them to stay in city shelters or be cared for by any institution. Pregnant teens and needy mothers with small children have also found shelter, assistance, compassion and hope at The Silence of Mary Home.

In the City of Harrisburg, particularly the Allison Hill area, the number of youth released from the foster care and juvenile probation systems grows daily. Many times these youth have no where to go and lack families that are able to adequately care for them. As such, they turn to the streets for their home or they live in rat-infested, dilapidated buildings with no electricity, heat or running water. Many are forced to become the parent figure for siblings or parents who are addicted to drugs or alcohol or suffer from mental illness and are unable to care for themselves or their children. In order to find food or money, many will turn to social ills in order to survive.

Mental illness is one of the most prevalent diseases in America. It affects over 35 million people and occurs in one out of every four families. The emotional illness of Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder (manic depressive illness), and Major Depression represent a serious social problem for many homeless. People with mental illness were once locked up and largely forgotten. In the social expansiveness of the early 1970s, the laws were changed. Mental institutions emptied and few options were available for this vulnerable group of individuals. For many there is literally no place for them to go but the streets.

That is why The Silence of Mary Home was born in the Allison Hill area of Harrisburg, one of the poorest and most crime-ridden neighborhoods of the city. We are a family home, we are not a group home, a shelter or an institution. Our family home affords a home with a family environment for God’s neglected and abandoned youth, those who are the most disadvantaged and at the highest risk level. We give them love, care, and support, while providing them with independent living skills training, education, job opportunities, spiritual faith, counseling and other supportive services needed for them to be successful members of the community. We live by the Ten Commandments, God’s rules. For more than six years, we have been moving youth off the streets and into a family home where they have the opportunity to learn and grow, and eventually find jobs and housing. The Silence of Mary Home enjoys collaborative partnerships with many local agencies that provide youth with the highest level of services designed to help them succeed.

Lynn Everhart, Administrator

After much anticipation, planning, and fund-raising, the Silence of Mary Home office welcomes a new Administrator. Her name is Lynn Everhart. Some of you may have seen her at the house, where she has been volunteering since December.

As Administrator, Lynn will work 15 hours each week helping Sue & Vern with grants, fundraising, administrative duties, and the development of tracking systems to measure how much Silence of Mary helps so many people. She will relieve Vern and Sue of paperwork, increase the Silence's ability to track the numbers of people served, the services provided, the units of service, and measure our outcomes and indicators of the changes the home makes in the most neediest of people and families. This builds the necessary foundation to seek grant funding.

Lynn came to Silence of Mary through a previous volunteer Robyn Bupp. Lynn sent her volunteer application & resume to Dolly Dougherty, who upon reading it realized she has the background for the Administrator position that the board had been considering. Praise be to God she was hired and began work February 1, 2008.

Before “retiring” and coming on board to help us out at Silence of Mary, Lynn served twenty-four years at ParentWorks, an affiliate of Family & Children Services of Central Pennsylvania.

Lynn joined the staff of Children’s Play Room as a volunteer in 1983. The following year she was hired to serve as Volunteer Coordinator. Lynn developed a formal training program and an extensive training manual for program volunteers. This corps of dedicated, highly trained individuals made it possible for the program to function smoothly in spite of a limited agency budget.

In 1985 Lynn directed a collaborative effort with the Opportunities Industrialization Center (OIC) to develop the Library Education and Parenting (LEAP) program, later known as Farewell to Welfare. Reading with children is a cornerstone of the Children’s Play Room program, and LEAP was designed to combine literacy with parenting for young mothers who had dropped out of school because of the birth of their children.

In 1988 Lynn was promoted to the position of Administrator of Programs. Under her leadership ParentWorks centers served the communities of Camp Hill, Duncannon, Elizabethtown, Elizabethville, Hershey, Middletown, and New Cumberland.

In 1995, thanks to Lynn’s leadership, Children’s Play Room was the recipient of the first Children’s Trust Fund grant ever awarded in Dauphin County. That grant enabled ParentWorks to provide a parenting program to parents who received medical services at the Kline Clinic, at Polyclinic Hospital.

When Children’s Play Room merged with The ESCAPE Center to form ParentWorks in 2000, Lynn took on the management of in-home programs, as well as our centers. Today over 85% of ParentWorks clients are served in their own homes.

In addition to her work at ParentWorks, Lynn has served the community through her membership on the Advisory Board of Cumberland County Children & Youth, the Multi-Disciplinary Team of Dauphin County Children and Youth, the Carlisle United Way’s Success-By-Six committee, and the Cumberland County Commission for Women.

Upon her retirement, the ParentWorks community applauded, “Thank you so much for your service, Lynn! Our community is a better place because of your dedication and your passion for helping parents provide a warm, nurturing home for their families. You have made a tremendous difference in the lives of thousands of children.”

Details provided by Dolly Dougherty, the Silence of Mary's Volunteer Coordinator and interim Office Administrator, Lynn Everhart, and the ParentWorks Newsletter.